


7:15 am

by wildglitterwolf



Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Cliff “cooks”, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Husbands who don’t live together basically, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 15:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21148070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildglitterwolf/pseuds/wildglitterwolf
Summary: Just a look at Cliff’s typical morning routine when he has to get Rick to work on time. Takes place on the morning Cliff has to get Rick to theLancerset.





	7:15 am

**Author's Note:**

> The dialogue they have as Cliff is leaving always made me feel like Cliff has to deal with a lot of Rick’s shit in the morning if he has to keep emphasizing they have to be out the door and in the car at this time. So that’s where this whole idea came from.

_“Alright, 7:15 am.”_

_“7:15.”_

_“Out the door.”_

_“Out the door.”_

_“In the car.”_

_“Alright. See you then.”_

Cliff’s been through this dance before. Ever since he started being Rick’s personal chauffeur, he had learned quickly that Rick was not a morning person. Well, he already knew this as Rick would more often than not arrive late on set, but when you have to physically pull another man out of bed and force him to get ready for the day like a mom forcing a child to get ready for school, it really drives the observation home.

As for Cliff, he had almost the opposite schedule. There wasn’t much to do late at night in his trailer other than watching TV, and even with Brandy there it did start to feel lonely after a couple hours. So after he finished downing his entire pot of mac’n’cheese and took Brandy for a walk around the perimeter of the drive-in, he decided to turn in early for the night to get ready to put up with Rick in the morning.

Around 4am, Cliff got up and went outside to bench press and let Brandy run around a bit. Cliff rarely ever saw his neighbors if ever, but he preferred to let Brandy have her fun while it was still dark out in case they took issue with having a pit bull running loose all over. But Brandy was a well-trained girl who knew better than to stray too far from her owner and was patiently waiting by the bench for him to finish when she was tired out.

“Alright, girl. It’s feeding time,” Cliff says as he’s greeted with a slobbering kiss once he puts the weights back into place. He heads back in with her at his heels and signals to her to start the feeding routine. Brandy jumps on the chair as Cliff goes to pull out the cans of food (double early bird flavor this morning) while debating to himself if he should eat now or wait until he sees Rick. Maybe he could magically get Rick out early enough to go to a diner for breakfast. 

“Whaddya think, Brandy? Think Rick’s gonna be up when I get there? Or am I gonna find Sleeping Beauty still passed out?”

“Arf!”

“Yeeaaah, I think so too,” Cliff says, grinning to himself as he dumps the last can of wet food into Brandy’s bowl and then her kibble. He gets out of the kitchen area before he makes the ‘click’ to send her flying in to devour her meal.

After he gets out of a quick shower, Cliff looks around the clutter of haphazardly thrown clothes for something at least somewhat clean today. As far as he knew, he wouldn’t have to look presentable enough like he did for Rick’s meeting with Mr. Schwarz. He was planning to ask Rick to see if he could find out if he’s gonna be working this week but doubt that would happen today. Or at all, if he wanted to be deeply honest with himself. No, today he was probably just going to be Rick’s errand boy and housemaid, so he grabs an old Champion shirt he finds on the floor, yellow Hawaiian shirt hanging off a drawer, and recycles everything from the waist down from yesterday. 

“Remind me. I’m gonna need to do laundry this week. Maybe tomorrow so I can throw my stuff in with Rick’s if he has enough,” he says to mellowed out and full Brandy lying on the couch. “Also, I’m gonna come by and give you an early dinner this afternoon since I’m planning to stay late at Rick’s tonight. Or maybe all night,” Cliff says with a wink. 

If Rick’s guest appearance goes positively tonight, Rick is going to be in a great mood. And Cliff was planning to stroke that ego real good tonight during the episode to make sure he is. Meanwhile, Brandy just stares back, clearly not understanding what her owner was hinting at, or anything he has been saying to her for that matter. 

“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be interested in that. Anyways, see you later girl.” Cliff turns the TV on to keep her entertained during the day and gives her a last pat on the head before he heads off towards Rick’s.

Cliff arrives at Rick’s around 6:15, meaning he’s got a good hour to turn Rick into a functioning human being. He unlocks the door with his spare key and heads straight to the bedroom to find Rick pretty much as he expected: fast asleep in bed positioned in a way that suggests he passed out before he could properly get settled in. It wouldn’t surprise Cliff in the slightest if Rick got hammered last night, even if Rick had insisted he was feeling better. 

Cliff decides to be nice enough and give him until 6:30 before pestering him. Instead he goes through Rick’s closet and drawers to put together his outfit for day. It’s a good thing Rick was far neater and more organized than he was when it came to his clothes. Actually, pretty much everything. He found it ironic at times that he was the one hired to keep Rick’s place clean when it was his trailer that needed far more help. Maybe he should have Rick come by and fix his place up some time. 

“Alright, sleepyhead. Wake up. Gotta get going soon,” Cliff says as he gently shakes Rick’s shoulder enough to make him stir and then a little rougher to fully get him up. 

“Ughhh… fuck….Cliff, what the fuck time is it? It still dark outside?” Rick grumbles as he rolls over to look at his clock through squinted eyes. “Jesus, Cliff. You said 7:15. It’s 6:30.”

“I said 7:15 out the door. You obviously need time to get up and get ready. I might have already made the mistake of letting you sleep an extra fifteen minutes because I don’t know if there’s enough time at this point. Maybe I should have gotten here two hours early.” Cliff grins and steps to the side to dodge the pillow being flung at his head. His teasing clearly hit a nerve, which was his goal. Rick was more likely to get up if Cliff kept talking shit in the hopes to get him to stop talking.

“Alright alright, I’m getting up. Just shut up. Got a fucking… fucking migraine or something.”

“Yeah, how much did you have to drink last night? Three… four?”

Rick has finally rolled himself into a sitting position as he tightly grips the edge of the bed trying to process the question. “Uhhhh…. I think… m-maybe eight whiskey sours?”

“Shit, man. Why’d you go and do that for? Thought you had lines to memorize?”

“I-I did and I-I-I did them j-just fine. N-no problem.”

“Alright. What’s your first line?” Cliff asked before getting a whack in the side by another pillow. Fortunately, Rick had little to no strength behind it to do any damage. “Hey, don’t hit me with that thing, man. I’m just trying to help,” 

“Be quiet. Head hurts,” Rick mumbles as he gives another hit with the pillow for good measure. He drops the pillow back on the bed before leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Cliff’s waist, head burying into his chest as he threatens to fall back asleep.

“Oh no you don’t, get up,” Cliff commands. He doesn’t give Rick a chance to respond before he’s roughly pulling him up and dragging him towards the bathroom. Rick doesn’t fight being moved but still holds tightly onto Cliff trying to get a few more winks of sleep off him. It was working, too. He didn’t notice that Cliff had stopped moving or the sound of water running for a minute in the background until he was suddenly pushed off and greeted with a face of ice cold water.

“Oh, SHIT this is cold! Oh shit! Shit! SHIT!” Rick was wide awake now but kept his eyes closed as he flailed his hands around looking to turn the shower off. He finally turns if off and glares at a smug looking Cliff. “Alright, I’m awake. Happy now, you piece of shit?”

“Yup. You think you’re conscious enough to take one or do I have to wash you? Because if you fall and hurt yourself on my watch, that’s on me. And I don’t think you wanna risk calling out of this role because you fell in the shower or something.”

Rick scoffs at the notion that he’d have to be bathed like a child. But he has passed out before in the bathroom after he drank too much and had gotten banged up pretty good. Nothing serious, just some cuts and bruises. 

“You wanna stunt double this shower for me if you’re so worried I’ll get hurt?”

“Nah, I already took a shower this morning. I don’t need another so I’m not about to hold you up for the whole thing. But if you want me to next time give me a heads up the night before that you’re getting shitfaced and I’ll skip it.”

“W-what? No… no, no don’t need you uh, to do that. I-I’m good.” Rick nervously runs his hand through his hair. It’s been awhile since they showered together and Rick just assumed it wasn’t Cliff’s kink so he stopped asking. But if he was willing to for this kind of thing in the future, then maybe Rick was just feeling insecure as usual. 

“Well alright. You finish up here while I go get breakfast started.”

“Huh? Thought we could go out for that.”

“You’re in no shape to be in public right now. And for being an asshole to me this morning you get to suffer my cooking. Now get going. Got clothes for you on your dresser ready to go so you don’t have to think about it when you’re out.” And before Rick can say a word of protest, Cliff is out the door and closes it, making sure he hears the shower turn on before he heads to the kitchen. 

Cliff browses the cupboards and fridge for something he could scrape together. It looks like he’s definitely going to have to buy groceries this week. He didn’t know why Rick insisted on him buying mostly ingredients for stuff when he was about as great a cook as Cliff was, and at least Cliff could admit to himself that he wasn’t even that good with things that came in a box. Maybe mac’n’cheese and TV dinners were just below Rick Dalton’s sophisticated level. But then again, Cliff swears that man drinks more than he eats anyways.

There’s a few eggs, leftover ham,  
and some vegetables on their last legs Cliff thinks he could attempt a scramble out of. With some poor knife skills and a heavy hand with the pepper, he makes something that could potentially be edible. 

“Well… uh, shit, Rick. I swear you look worse than before I woke you up.” Rick came in moving almost like a zombie. His clean clothes for the day looked so poorly put on you’d think he was just coming in from a long night of partying. 

“Yeah, looks like your ice water fuck to my face wore off,” Rick says with a yawn as he sits at the table before leaning in with squinted eyes to stare at the yellow mass with large chunks of stuff mixed in on the plate in front of him. “Is this safe?”

“You tell me,” Cliff chuckles as he dumps about a tablespoon worth of Tabasco on his eggs. He takes a bite, completely void of any indication of the intensity of heat he just ate. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

Seeing as Cliff hasn’t keeled over and died after a few more mouthfuls, Rick bravely starts to dig in on his own. He got about three bites in thinking Cliff might have finally managed something before he got a big mouth full of pepper not mixed all the way in.

“Jesus! Fuck!” Rick gags on a mouth full of scramble and spits it into his napkin. “How much pepper did you put in here??”

“Well, to be honest, I was thinking not enough from what I've eaten so far.”

“No… shit, no. Way too much, Cliff. Waaaaay too much. You’re a fucking weirdo.” Rick keeps muttering under his breath as he eats around the areas of scramble that don’t look almost pitch black. Luckily he managed to salvage enough that he was at least full by the end. 

Cliff finishes his plate with no problem as he checks his watch. “Woah, woah, 7:12. Leave the plates here, I’ll clean up when I get back. Go grab your shit and maybe comb your hair or something so you don’t look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“Yes, mom,” Rick says with an eye roll as he gets up and is hit with Cliff’s crumpled up napkin on the side of his head. “Hey! What the fuck, man?!”

“That’s Mr. Mom to you, Richard. Hurry up, it’s 7:13 now.”

Rick grumbles as he goes to grab his bag and check that he has everything he needs. His brain is still killing him so going through his mental checklist took longer than it should have, plus trying to remember where he put his car keys. Finally after about five minutes he makes his way to the open front door where Cliff is standing staring at his watch.

“7:18. You were so close, man. So close. Well at least it was better than last time.”

Rick just glares at him and shoves his keys at Cliff’s chest as he stumbles out into the early morning light. He gets to the car and tries to open it without thinking, realizing he should of just kept the keys. He turns around and sees Cliff is taking his sweet ass time locking up the house and walking over. 

“I thought you were the one who wanted to hurry up and go. Move your ass...ass… uh, w-why are y-you l-looking at me like that?” Rick says, suddenly nervous as Cliff was right up against him keeping him trapped against the car, a disappointed look on his face.

“You forgot something.”

“W-what?”

“You forgot to give me something. On the way out.”

Rick tries to scramble through the mental haze of what Cliff meant. When he finally realizes what it is it’s too late; Cliff had him pressed up against the car as soon as Rick remembered with a very hard kiss on the lips. He gives Cliff a few moments before angrily pushing him off. 

“Not outside! P-people will see,” Rick mutters as he tries to finally straighten up his clothes and smoothe his hair back. 

“You forgot to inside. I can’t properly start my day without it.”

“Then next time r-remind me on the w-way out.”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to.” Cliff’s voice didn’t sound angry or sad, just disappointed. To be honest, Rick was wishing he was one of the former two as this felt worse.

“Alright, alright!” Rick looks around nervously making sure no one else was out in the neighborhood before giving him a quick peck on the lips. “There, happy? Now we are really wasting time. Open my door.”

“Yes, boss,” Cliff says with a chuckle as he opens the door and helps him in before getting in on the driver’s side. “You can just rest on the way over if you think it will help.”

“I was planning to. You talking hurts my head.”

“Aww, I love you, too,” Cliff says as he gives Rick a pat on the thigh and starts the car and radio up. 

“No, no, turn that off.”

“Well if you’re not going to keep me company in traffic I need something to.” Cliff turns it up a little louder just to irritate Rick for the moment then puts it back to a tolerable volume. Soon enough, Rick is dozing off before they even get out of the hills.

Cliff looks over at him every now and then, the temptation to pester him was too great. But he also knows Rick needs to be in a better mood when they get there then when they left. After all, this man was his meal ticket. Livelihood. Whole fucking life. 

And Cliff was completely fine with that.


End file.
